How to Discover Website Ideas That Make Money: The Ultimate Guide

Hey! Welcome to the first official update of my Public Niche Website Project – a live case study where I reveal anything about the process of building my online business with niche websites. Today, I’m going to go over my in-depth process of generating niche ideas that satisfies both my interest and the potential to be successful.

Why Market Discovery Comes First?

I preferly don’t follow the typical advice of doing keyword research first when it comes to building niche websites. Although keyword research is extremely important, it’s more important to identify exactly WHO is your ideal customer and WHAT you are going to sell.

Driving traffic is just a part of your strategy, keyword search serves for that reason, and the most interesting thing is that there’s always an oppoturnity for you in virtually any market, no matter how competitive it is. So, focusing on discovering the MARKET first.

Do You Really Need Passion to Profit Online?

In short: No! Interest is enough. Pat Flynn from Smart Passive Income has written an article and shot a detailed video to answer this question so I don’t have to explain it again. Just watch this short video:

Finding Profitable Website Ideas – My Process Revealed

There are many ways to find niche for your websites that I will tell you later, but this was exactly what I did to find the niche that my case study website will be establish on.

1. SIX, SIX, SIX

To start off with, I personally love to make a short list containing three different categories that I think has the most potential for success. These categories include: 6 passions/hobbies of mine, 6 topics I have experience or am knowledgeable in, and 6 frustrations/fears that I have.

There are billions of people all over the world, so there’re always enough people who have the same passions/fears like me or want to learn something from my experiences. That’s why this “six, six, six” method works very well!

Here is a screenshot of a mindmap of my 666:

2. Choosing a Niche That Actually Makes Money

You can make money in virtually any niche, but there are some niches that are the most profitable so you will have a high chance to buy a successful niche website off that topic. They are:

The “BIG 3”

What is the “BIG 3”? These are massive markets that are evergreen and will be profitable until the end of time. They are MONEY, RELATIONSHIPS and HEALTH. Before moving into explaining why they are important, let me give a quick breakdowns of what each includes:

Money: Everyone is always looking to improve their finances, make more money, set up a business, debt advice, get a job, career advice, etc.

Relationships: This is a huge market that has many targeted sub-niches within it that you could build a site around. This can include: dating, getting an ex back, picking up a girl, networking, divorce, breaking-up, etc.

Health: This include everything to do with how we look and feel: losing weight, healthy diet, working out at home, cure acne, get rid of belly fat, etc.

Whenever you come up with a new niche, remember to check whether it falls into these general niches or not. These niches are proven to be profitable, so it’s highly recommended to build a website around them. Just remember to go as deep as you can to find a sub-niche where the competition is low.

Why are these niches great? All threes reflect basic and foundational human emotions. Getting a job, making money, dating, being healthy and getting the most of life are something that we human are striving for for thousands of years and I guarantee that one thousands of years from now people still have the same concerns. That’s why I call these niches evergreen.

3. Narrow Down to Top 3

From my list of 18 above, I then narrowed down the list to a top 3, which resonate me the most and fit with the “BIG 3”

Here is my top 3 and why:

Acne: Honestly, I’m an acne sufferer. I have been with this embarassing disease for over 3 years. I know all the embarrassment and frustration when looking at myself in the mirror every morning. Now I have just a few blackheads remaining, but it’s far better than it was 3 years ago. So this niche make me interested the most and I really want to help other people clear up their acne.

Productivity: I choose productivity second because it’s something I have serious problem with. I used to be the best procrastinator in the world. I procrastinated on everything. I woke up late and went to bed at 12 PM. I spent more time surfing the web than focusing on my online business. This topic is a killer because it’s the painful problem that every people around the world have.

Getting Fit: I’m a crazy fan of 6-pack abs and I always try to have one.

Other Resources to Help You Find the Right Website Ideas

NEXT – Keyword Research

From there, I will be doing keyword research for each of these niches to make the final decision of what niche I will go with. The selected niche will be the one that has many low competition keywords that are waiting for me to target :).

The next article in this case study series will be all about how to do keyword research effectively. Remember to enter your email and keep yourself updated 🙂

Nice post Tung! I guess that picking a niche that you are personally interested in is good if you are building your first niche website. But in order to truly scale up, you need to create lots of different websites in different niches.

I guess that if you are in the niche site business for long enough, you will gain the ability to UNDERSTAND ANY MARKET, and appropriately write/buy content and build websites that cater to those markets. After all, don’t you think that UNDERSTANDING THE TARGET MARKET is the essence of being a marketer?

Hey Tung Amazing post buddy.. btw have also noticed that in health niche the most trending ones are Acne, weight loss and building muscle. These 3 are amazing $$$$ – $$$$$ Niche topics if planning long term then person should go with them as it has high competition, so not immediately but person can rank definately for some cool money making keywords 🙂

we can also find niche ideas by visiting stumbleupon and ezinearticles (ezine has very huge categories where we can find easily many niche ideas then just put their category url into GKP then brainstorm boom) and also amazon and clickbank for affiliate websites.

Thanks for your awesome blog! I think it is really important to write not only stuff that sells but that’s also really useful and has true content. By the way, I have a question to you: Do you think, that the internet is too crowded to make really profitable niche sites or do you think that there’s and will be still enough to write about?